An Afghan asylum seeker who raped a 12-year-old girl in a case which sparked protests and allegations of a police cover up was convicted today of multiple sex offences on the ‘very vulnerable’ victim.
Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, whose victim said he laughed while attacking her in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, last summer, was found guilty of rape and two counts of sexual assault, having admitted a further rape charge before his trial.
Jurors at Warwick Crown Court also convicted him of child abduction and taking an indecent video of the girl during her ordeal near a residential cul-de-sac.
His co-defendant, Mohammad Kabir, also an asylum seeker from Afghanistan, who arrived in the UK on Christmas Day 2024, was acquitted of charges of intentional strangulation, attempted child abduction and committing an offence with intent to commit a sexual offence.
A court heard Mulakhil, who arrived in UK four months before the attack, spotted the girl as she played on swings in a park – and was later recorded on a doorbell camera telling her ‘you’re very small’ and asking for her phone number.
Following the conclusion of the trial, the Daily Mail can reveal the rapist was tracked down through the Home Office payment card which had been issued in his name.
Mulakhil sat with his head bowed after he was convicted. He was remanded in custody until sentencing at a later date.
Judge Kristina Montgomery KC warned that he would ‘plainly receive a substantial custodial sentence which will automatically make him liable for deportation at its conclusion’.
Details of the 23-year-old’s immigration status were revealed by the Mail on Sunday a month after the July attack – leading to an anti-immigration protest in the town centre. But during the ten-day trial, jurors were not told Mulakhil – who arrived in the UK on a small boat – was an asylum seeker.
Police identified Mulakhil after he was caught on CCTV taking his victim to a convenience store to buy Red Bull following the sex attack, and used a Home Office card issued in his name to pay for the drinks.
The cards are given to asylum seekers awaiting a decision to allow them to buy basic items and are topped up with up to £49 each week.
Mulakhil pleaded guilty before trial to one count of oral rape after officers found an image of the incident on his phone.
He denied abducting the girl and claimed sexual activity that did take place was consensual and ‘initiated’ by the girl.
He also denied two other counts of rape, abducting a child, two counts of sexual assault and taking indecent photographs of a child. He was cleared of one of those two counts of rape but convicted of all other offences.
Following the jury’s verdict today, Warwickshire Police issued bodyworn footage showing the moment Mulakhil was arrested in his sparsely-furnished bedroom in a house of multiple occupation (HMO) in Nuneaton.
Police believe he targeted the girl after spotting her in the park.
The girl told police she later came across Mulakhil on a nearby street. He took her to a grassy area beside garages at the end of a cul-de-sac, threatened to kill her family and repeatedly raped her, jurors were told.
‘He was saying that he liked me’, the girl said. ‘I said, ‘I don’t like you. I’m young. I’m a kid’.
In a videotaped statement, the girl said: ‘He was trying to strip my clothes off. He said nothing. He was laughing.
‘I was saying get off me but he didn’t say anything, he just carried on.
Mulakhil took indecent photos of the youngster during the attack, the court was told.
Shortly after Mulakhil was filmed with the girl buying Red Bull at a convenience store, she saw an opportunity to escape from him and ran away.
She was later found ‘distressed’ and alone in another nearby park by an adult that she knew, who called the police.
Mulakhil’s DNA was found on the girl’s neck and inside her shorts, the court heard.
CCTV evidence showed Mulakhil spent around 80 minutes in the cul-de-sac with the girl.
Mulakhil, who was assisted by a Farsi interpreter in court, admitted to police that he met the girl twice that day and claimed he believed she looked in her twenties – then told jurors he had believed her when she was recorded on a doorbell camera talking to him in a street before the rape when she told him she was 19.
But prosecutor Daniel Oscroft described it as an ‘obvious lie’, adding: ‘It was clear that from Mr Mulakhil’s reaction, he didn’t believe her.’
He old the court during his opening: ‘The prosecution say that it would be obvious to anyone that she was a very young, vulnerable child.’
Mulakhil told jurors his ‘immigration application’ was still being processed at the time of the rape.
Mulakhil said he arrived in the UK four months before the attack and was initially housed in Kent, having made an immigration application linked to ‘problems’ he had experienced in Afghanistan.
He told jurors he had been ‘placed’ in Nuneaton six weeks before he pounced on the girl.
Mulakhil was arrested four days after the incident and charged the following day.
Jurors took seven hours and 39 minutes to convict him. He had no previous convictions.
Kabir was ordered to be discharged from the dock following his acquittal, with the court being told he would be released into the care of the escort service taking him to where he resides or is being held.
The judge thanked the jury for discharging their duties without paying any regard to ‘noise’ surrounding the proceedings.
Mulakhil and Kabir lived in tax-payer-funded rented houses on adjoining streets in Nuneaton.
A resident in the street where Kabir lived said the HMO had been a ‘nightmare’ for locals.
He added: ‘It was so bad the council ended up putting cameras up.
‘Basically there was a lot of shouting at 2am or 3am, a lot of comings and goings at night with different people so you wonder who they are bringing into the street.
‘It has been empty for a couple of months now and redecorated, so it has calmed down a bit, and the council has said they are only going to house women in future.
‘But before it caused a lot of problems. One of the guys was hammering on one of the walls and threatening to kill the family next door. Then he was outside banging on the door. I went out and confronted him and he was screaming ‘ISIS’.
‘The family next door ended up moving out. It’s been awful – we just want it shut down for good now.’
Both properties are now empty, according to neighbours.
Both properties were managed by Serco, which accommodated around five asylum seekers in each house, but are now empty, neighbours said.
Last August, George Finch, the leader of the Reform UK-led Warwickshire County Council, accused Warwickshire Police and the Home Office of covering up Mulakhil and Kabir’s immigration status.
It emerged that Warwickshire Police had advised councillors and officials not to disclose the background of the suspects for fear of ‘inflaming community tensions’ amid fears of unrest akin to that seen in Epping, Essex, after asylum seeker Hadush Kebatu was charged – and later convicted – of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old schoolgirl.
Mr Fich, at 19 the country’s youngest county leader, said at the time that he was ‘begging’ for information about the pair to be released in the wake of the charges.
The furore led to new guidance for police forces to disclose the ethnicity and nationality of suspects in high-profile cases.
Outside court, Detective Chief Inspector Collette O’Keefe, from Warwickshire Police, said the case ‘demonstrates that it doesn’t matter about nationality and ethnicity’, adding: ‘We deal with people robustly and we get results very quickly.’
‘I think what’s got lost in a lot of this is that it’s a 12-year-old victim at the heart of this investigation.’ She said ‘regardless of the ethnicity or nationality’ of the defendant, ‘we should really remember that the victim has been raped.’
DCI O’Keefe added: ‘She was out, playing in the park, which is what children should be able to do…I think (he) took an opportunity…made the decision to target that individual.’
Asked to answer allegations that the force attempted to cover-up the suspects’ backgrounds in the aftermath of the rape last summer, Steve Flavell, the Superintendent for communities and response at Warwickshire police, said: ‘We did everything in line with the guidance that was available at the time.
‘At the time when we did release our communications, there was no guidance around whether we should or should not release certain details around offenders.
‘Today, we still wouldn’t release the immigration status of an offender, as that’s information that’s owned by the Home Office.
‘But we’re aware now there is new national guidance that allows us to release certain information to the media.’
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We will not allow foreign criminals and illegal migrants to exploit our laws.
‘We are reforming human rights laws and replacing the broken appeals system so we can scale up deportations.
‘The Home Secretary has recently announced sweeping reforms to tackle illegal migration. They will make Britain a less attractive destination for illegal migrants and will make it easier to remove and deport them.’
The Home Office launched an investigation last July into claims some asylum seekers may be using their payment cards for gambling.
A Freedom of Information request made by PoliticsHome revealed more than 6,500 gambling-related payments were attempted by asylum seekers in the previous year.
When asylum seekers first arrive they are usually first put up in fully catered hotels – and given £9.95 a week on their Aspen card, rising to £49.18 a week when they’re moved to self-catered accommodation.
